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#GuestPost: Top 5 Vampire Novels by PULSE author Danielle Koste

Not long ago, I revealed the cover for Danielle Koste’s Pulse, and I’m ecstatic to have Danielle herself here today. She’s gone all out to share her favourite vampire novels, only fitting that Pulse features the study of an interesting individual with an unusual diet. So join me, one Danielle, in welcoming another Danielle! And don’t miss the giveaway at the end for a signed paperback of Pulse!

Danielle Koste’s Top 5 Vampire Novels

First of all, for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Danielle Koste and I’m the author of PULSE! It’s coming out soon and I’m super excited to guest here at Dani’s blog for my blog tour leading up to the book’s release!

When planning this blog tour, Dani made some great suggestions on things that I could write about for my guest post, and one of them really stuck out to me: Top 5 Vampire Novels. Surprisingly, the reason this stuck out to me was actually because I haven’t read that many vampire novels. My first thought was, “I definitely can’t write about that, I’m not well read enough,” but perhaps that’s exactly why I should do a top 5 list. Unlike a reviewer, who might pick up a large assortment of books but find themselves not liking a majority of them, as a more casual reader I’m allowed to indulge only in books that I’m sure I’m going to enjoy. I’ve only finished a handful of vampire novels because I have the privilege of putting down the ones I’m not enjoying as much, something a reviewer probably does far less often than myself.

As I considered this guest post though, re-reading some of my favorites to jog my memory and trying out some new but highly recommended titles, I realized that my picks were becoming less about my particular favorites, and closer to a list of essentials. Five vampire novels that every fanatic and wanna-be vamp writer should have under their belt.

So get your pen and paper ready class, because I’m about to dive into a Vampire 101 lesson. 5 novels (in no particular order) that you absolutely have to read if you love everything vampire (and maybe even some you should read if you’re a vamp skeptic!)

But first, we should start with an honorable mention!

Honorable Mention: Twilight By Stephanie Meyers

This is where I already lose you guys, isn’t it? I know, I know, Twilight is probably the last book most people would recommend these days, myself included, especially to people who like the kind of vampires that I like. But Twilight needs to be mentioned for its own special reasons. That reason being its almost single-handed revival of vampires, and arguably, the paranormal genre as a whole.

While it also just as quickly snuffed itself out with oversaturation, let’s give credit where credit is due. If you’re over 20 years old and in the reading scene, you were probably at a book release or knew someone who adamantly fought for Team Edward or Team Jacob. I’m not entirely sure a lot of the readers and authors my age or younger than me would have been subjected to the paranormal genre at all if it hadn’t been for Twilight. It’s entirely possible that without the series, I wouldn’t even be here writing this list for you, and for that reason alone, I have to give it some recognition. Or at least give the first 3 in the series recognition. Let’s just all forget that Breaking Dawn even happened, ok?

#1: Dracula by Bram Stoker

How am I supposed to make a vampire book list and not include Dracula? How am I supposed to make a vampire book list and include it? In a way, it’s so obvious. Of course it has to be here, but also, maybe the 5th place spot should be saved for something more obscure and lesser known. After all, everyone knows Dracula, it should be a given. I debated excluding it, but I thought it was important to mention the “original” blood sucker because I feel like there’s a lot of people who have heard of the novel but not actually read it.

Dracula is where all the modern vampires get their roots from, and it sets the groundwork for my list of essentials. The traditional lore of blood sucking, fangs, pale skin, undead, and sometimes even shapeshifting creatures all come from Dracula (and, of course, even earlier vampire folklore).

More importantly though, Dracula is the first appearance of another common theme of vampire novels: innocence and the corruption of such innocence. This is a predominant theme that is often played with in a number of vampire novels that followed. Twilight definitely toyed with this power dynamic; whenever given the opportunity, SM liked to accentuate Edward’s capability of harming Bella, particularly during moments of intimacy. This is hardly an uncommon occurrence in vampire novels.

The dangerous, mysterious creature of the night that can (and usually ultimately does) corrupt a beautiful, innocent human. There’s something inherently taboo about the idea of “innocence” being “corrupted,” and it makes a particularly obvious allusion to sexuality, which is a key factor in the later development of the vampires’ most common lore.

However dated the concept of “innocent virgin ravished and corrupted by hungry monster” is, it’s still managed to stick around in the core themes of vampire novels over the years. As a vampire fan and writer, I think it’s especially important to read Dracula to completely understand the roots of where this idea comes from, and how it’s influenced further works of fiction, such as the renaissance type vampires that came after.

Speaking of…

#2: Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice

Anne Rice’s writing is not going to be for everyone, but if you’re like me and you like to read long paragraphs of self-indulgent ramblings, you’ll enjoy almost anything written by Anne.

The main reason I recommend Interview With The Vampire, though, is not so much Anne’s particular style of writing, but rather her particular style of vampire. Anne took that allusion to sexuality and threw it right there in front of your face with alluring, irresistible representations of vampires that easily became the standard for all writers at the time, and arguably even to this day.

Anne held onto the monstrousness of the affliction, but she gave it a glossy veneer of perfection. Anne’s vampires use humans’ sexuality and vulnerabilities against them, becoming an image of sexual and physical perfection, making them the ideal predators of humans. Specifically pure, naive humans.

Anne also did something else very important for the genre, though. She popularized the vampire perspective. She reminded us that vampires were once human and drew that parallel between humanity and our capability to be evil, and our capability to stay pure, even in the clutches of corruption.

In Interview With The Vampire, we follow Louis on his journey through life as a newly made vampire, and his struggles with his own morality as he learns the ins and out of his new lifestyle. Lestat, his maker, acts as the image of what a vampire is supposed to be, or at least at first, teaching him the ways of the night with a cruel and brutal disregard for everyone but himself, leading Louis to feel both love and hatred for the man. Joining them is also Claudia, turned when she was only a small child, left to struggle with dysphoria of being centuries old but trapped in the body of a girl.

With each character we experience a unique perspective on the same affliction, and we come to learn that vampires are as human as they choose to be, very much like humans are. She writes them beautiful and alluring and fantastical, but also flawed and broken.

#3: Lost Souls by Poppy Z Brite

In the way that Anne Rice made vampires romantic and sensual, Poppy made them gritty and real. A lot of people compare Poppy’s work to Anne, maybe because they were both writing about vampires around the same time, and they both have an indulgent style to their prose (meaning Poppy will be another writer that’s probably not for everyone).

In Lost Souls, Poppy breaks out of the vampire mold a little, though. Her vamps are a different breed altogether. Meaning you can’t make a vampire unless you… well… make a baby. And that’s actually how Lost Souls starts. With a baby.

His name is Nothing, and Lost Souls‘ plot starts with him, now an edgy fifteen year-old, going out on his own to find his real father, and then the disaster of consequences after the fact. There’s also a mess of other characters that are all closely followed in the book’s narration, some vampires, some not, but all of which end up crossing paths throughout the novel, and all of which are severely flawed in their own special ways.

Ultimately, the novel becomes a mess of the fantastical and the very real. In the way that Anne Rice romanticized the brutality of vampires (think bites where the victim makes a little moan instead of a scream and there’s tiny little drips of blood from the clean fang holes in their neck), Poppy shoves your face deep into that brutality. There’s nothing glamorous or alluring about her vampires. Or well, there is, you can’t look away from them in the same way that you can’t look away from a car crash. Poppy’s vampires are a little bit like taking a drink of what you think will be delicious red wine, and realizing only when it’s halfway down your throat that it’s actually blood (an occurrence that actually happens in the book, for that matter).

I particular love Lost Souls for this reason. It doesn’t sugar coat vampires. In fact, it doesn’t sugar coat any of the characters. They are all severely broken (the name Lost Souls is very appropriate), and it’s almost like that was the intention. While Anne’s writing highlighted how human vampires can be, Poppy’s highlight how monstrous even humans can be.

Definitely not a read for the faint of heart. CW for explicit rape, blood, violence, gore, drug use, murder, underaged sex, and incest.

#4: The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein

With what I consider the basics already mentioned, I wanted to throw in something that was particularly different to highlight what can be done with vampires when they are used in a different way. The Moth Diaries is a perfect example for this because it’s arguably not even a vampire novel.

The Moth Diaries is written, as the title suggests, in diary entries. Our unnamed narrator is a student at an all girls boarding school, where she records the strange events that happen to her and her friends the year a new student arrives. The events eventually lead to our narrator theorizing that the new student is in fact, a vampire, and becomes obsessive about proving so, or destroying her.

Most of the book is quite mundane, but her everyday life is punctured with strange occurrences that make reading the novel feel more like an intense fever dream. You began to be unsure what is real and what isn’t. A great example of an unreliable narrator, which is one of my favorite writing tricks. While reading, you try your best to look for hints to prove her conclusions wrong, but you just end up falling down the rabbit hole along with her because the only explanation is that the new student is a vampire.

The reason why I included it to my list is because of how different it is. If we conclude that vampire novels are about innocence being corrupted, then our narrator is not corrupted in the traditional way, but instead she’s driven to near insanity just by her own paranoia. Her corruption is more about her mind, rather than her body like in other vampire novels.

I also love the mystery of it all. It sounds almost frustrating hearing that you never truly find out the truth, but let me assure you: it’s a good kind of unknown. It makes the new student that much more creepy and uncomfortable to read about. Considering vampire novels are usually about being unexplainably drawn to the vampire, it’s refreshing and different to have one where you, yourself as the reader, feel the narrator’s aversion.

And finally, last but definitely not least….

#5: Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

On the topic of the different things that can be done with vampires, I of course had to also mention Let The Right One In. I know I said earlier that this was not a list of favorites, but Let The Right One In is definitely one of my favorite vampire novels, and for good reason.

First of all, if you know Swedish, I recommend reading it in the original language. That being said, it’s just as gripping in English, but there are some unique quirks that don’t really make sense in the translation sometimes (it is very common in Sweden to have extended exchanges of dialog without dialog tags. In English writing, this can sometimes be confusing because you aren’t always sure who is talking first, so it can be difficult to keep track of who is saying what when the tags disappear for a longer exchange between characters).

There’s something uniquely unsettling about the whole novel; it lingers in the air of every scene and makes it all very tense. Oskar, our main character, is a bullied boy who deals with his torment with games of “Murderer” where he stabs trees with knives as he pretends they are his bullies. When he meets Eli, who recently moved in with her ‘father,’ it is clear from the get-go that there’s something off about her. On top of that, there’s a murderer in town, which Oskar is fascinated with. To put it plainly, Oskar is a very disturbed boy and it leads to very disturbing things happening.

Without giving away too many spoilers, because this is one you just HAVE to read, the reason I love John’s spin on vampires is again, because of the mystery of it all. It’s no secret to the reader what Eli is, but as you continue to read, you start to wonder if Eli is the one grooming the humans around her, or if she’s just a reflection of them. In this case, is she the corruptor, or does she simply feed their already existent corruption?

Another CW for this one, mostly for violence, gore, blood (maybe that should be a given with them all since vampires), and pedophilia.

About Pulse by Danielle Koste

Publication date: January 1st 2018

Genres: Sci-fi, Paranormal, Romance

Rowan Platts is addicted to success.

When she’s presented with the chance to work on a top secret project fronted by her idol, renowned virologist Dr. Margot Miller, Rowan signs her life away without second thought. The realization she’s gotten in over her head comes only after the subject of their study is revealed: a boy with a bad attitude and an uninhibited taste for human blood.

He’s a medical anomaly. Having the ability to crush metal with his bare hands and hear a heartbeat from across the room, it would make Rowan’s career if she was the one to discover what made him so unusual.

Easier said than done, with a subject who prefers snapping necks over answering questions.

About Danielle Koste

Danielle Koste is a born and raised Canadian, but currently lives with her significant other in the equally snowy and cold Stockholm, Sweden. While working a day job and learning the language of the locals, she spends her free time honing the craft she's always had a passion for.

When procrastinating, Danielle likes to enjoy other forms of rich story-telling, besides the obvious abundance of novels filling up her apartment and Kindle. Movies, music, and video games are among her favorite time-wasters.

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